US Deports 1,200 Foreign Nationals to Liberia in Mass Immigration Crackdown

The administration of US President Donald Trump has deported 1,200 foreign nationals from its territory to Liberia in West Africa. This forms part of Trump’s large-scale and unprecedented immigration crackdown in the United States.

The Trump administration, as reported by AFP on Wednesday (19/8/2026), has launched a drastic expansion of deportation coverage, arguing that the government can send people to countries that are not their country of origin.

“Liberia intends to accept up to 1,200 people who will be transferred from the United States within a one-year period,” the Liberian government announced in accepting the foreign nationals deported by the US.

The first group of 20 people deported from the US, according to the Liberian government, will arrive in the country on Thursday (20/8) local time. No details were provided regarding the countries of origin of those deported by the US.

The Liberian government said that those deported from the US will be “free to leave the country whenever they wish” or to apply for asylum.

The Trump administration, according to a report by leading US media outlet The New York Times, wants to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant from El Salvador who has become a symbol of mass deportation, to the country after he was previously mistakenly deported to El Salvador, his country of origin.

In the African region, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have become key transit points in the US immigration crackdown, although authorities there have quickly sent those deported by Washington back to their countries of origin.

Two former US State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the US is using visa bans and restrictions against African countries to pressure them into agreeing to accept people from third countries.

The Liberian government stressed that it “did not request or receive any compensation or promise of reward in exchange for their willingness to participate in the programme”.

“Liberia will receive support to help manage this programme, and strengthen its migration system more broadly,” the Liberian government said in its statement, while affirming that the agreement is “entirely humanitarian in nature”.

The US State Department declined to comment on the scheme.

Liberia is a country founded in the early 19th century by a society that sought the repatriation of former slaves and free-born African-Americans from the US.